Social worker Eli Menet may not consider the extra care and work he gives to patients and team members going the extra mile. He just finds it 'the right thing to do,' he says. However, Garfield Memorial Hospital patients, caregivers, and the community he works with have noticed he goes above and beyond expectations regularly, and they are adding up his extra miles as he puts in extra hours, rescues stranded tourists, or travels the rural roads of Utah to reunite loved ones. "Doing the right thing comes naturally to Eli. He doesn't hesitate to jump to action to help ease the burden and stress of patients and their families," said Garfield Memorial Hospital Administrator DeAnn Brown. Eli's extra miles continue to add up. He was chosen as the 2022 Garfield Memorial Caregiver Excellence Award winner and recently he was honored during a Desert Region Leadership Conference for his connection to the purpose, "We do the right thing." Whether Eli is spending a lifetime paying it forward or is simply dedicated to doing the right thing, his influence has been felt by his fellow caregivers, his community, and the patients he serves, from the smallest to the grandest gestures.
In celebration of National EMS Week, let's take a moment to honor and thank all EMS professionals for their commitment to providing prompt and skilled care in emergencies each and every day! 🚑👩⚕️👨⚕️ #NationalEMSWeek #ThankYouEMS
Our mission of helping people live the healthiest lives possible begins with our caregivers and their families. At Intermountain Health, we are proud to support the personal, work-related, and community well-being needs of our caregivers through a variety of programs and resources, including our Be Well Program. Learn more about how our Be Well Program helps support our caregivers below. ⬇️ #CaregiverWellBeing #JoinOurTeam
Calling all new graduate imaging professionals and current imaging students! Come connect with our team and learn more about our health system, our facilities, our imaging new grad career opportunities, and more at our upcoming Imaging New Grad Virtual Open House! Participants will be able to ask questions and connect with our talent acquisition team during this live event. Date: Wednesday, June 12th, 2024 Time: 8 a.m. - 10 a.m. MT Location: Virtual via Microsoft Teams - a link to join will be shared with you after you RSVP Visit https://tinyurl.com/bdrc8kzp to RSVP for this virtual event today - we look forward to connecting with you!
We're happy to celebrate Zafiro Portillo Primera, a high school intern at Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver, CO, who is graduating from Arrupe Jesuit High School this month and has received the prestigious Daniels Scholarship. She has been accepted into the nursing program at Regis University. Portillo Primera is one of many students from Arrupe and Denver Public Schools who participate in an internship, mentorship, or job training program at the hospital each year. Saint Joseph’s Community Benefit team organizes five separate programs to provide job training and work experience in the emergency department, nursing, simulation education, the foundation and in physician clinics. In August, the hospital will add Project SEARCH which provides internships designed for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. “These high school career education programs serve multiple purposes. They give students the chance to see options for careers that pay livable salaries, and they help grow the future healthcare workforce,” said Chuck Ault, Intermountain community benefit manager. The internship at Saint Joseph influenced Portillo Primera's decision to pursue nursing in college, she said. “I found it fascinating that medicine helps the human body heal itself,” she said. “Nurses play a huge role in interacting more with patients in an impactful way.”
A man in Texas needed an MRI. He called several providers in his local market for quotes, and all of them more than doubled the cost of an airline ticket to Utah, a hotel room and the flat scan rate of $550 at Tellica Imaging, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intermountain Health. Setting aside the price, just the fact that Tellica posts its pricing on its homepage challenges a market where, even in the face of transparency legislation, actual transparency is hard to come by. “We have treated patients from 22 U.S. states,” says Brad M. Isaacson, PhD, MBA, MSF, PMP, Tellica president and chief operating officer, “despite having locations in two states presently. The fact that we have people flying in from out of state to see us shows we’re providing immense value.” This was the original mission of Tellica: to make medical imaging more transparent and affordable – to a radical degree. “The creation of Tellica stemmed from a need to rethink care delivery, affordability and access to CT and MRI imaging exams,” says Nannette Berensen, Intermountain’s chief operating officer and founding board chair of Tellica. “Location, scheduling difficulty and cost are barriers for many.” In terms of patient experience, it’s a concept almost revolutionary in its simplicity: tell people how much it costs, and make it cost as little as possible. And it’s had an enormous impact.
Happy National Speech Pathologist Day! 🎉 Today, we celebrate the incredible impact speech pathologists have on our patients, helping them communicate more effectively and connect with the world around them. Thank you for all you do! #NationalSpeechPathologistDay
Caregiver Appreciation Week is in full swing, recognizing the work of each and every caregiver at Intermountain Health. How our teams are celebrating may look different if they're a clinical or a non-clinical caregiver or depending on which region they work in. But wherever we’re located and whatever we do, we’re Better Together. And we have the photos to prove it! Rob Allen, president and CEO, visited with caregivers at the Central Laundry facility in North Salt Lake on Wednesday, May 15th to share cookies and appreciation. “These caregivers provide an invaluable service in keeping many Intermountain Health hospitals stocked with clean, comfortable linens to care for patients. I appreciate their important contributions to our mission. To each of our 68,000 Intermountain caregivers, thank you, and Happy Caregiver Appreciation Week.”
For more than 20 years, 102-year-old Shirley Schultz has volunteered weekly at St. Mary’s Regional Hospital in Grand Junction, CO sorting papers and doing what she refers to as “grunt work” because she says it’s what keeps her going. Shirley celebrates her 102nd birthday on May 13th, so St. Mary’s held an early birthday party for her, complete with cake, singing and dancing. Shirley is a three-time cancer survivor with an adventurous spirit and a passion for living life to the fullest. She says her secret to living a long and happy life is having a positive attitude no matter what life throws at you. “Every single day I enjoy life,” said Shirley. “I learned that through tragedies, and I enjoy every bloody day. Friends and family are the biggest things in my life. Without my family, I don’t think I’d be where I am.” She also credits her happiness to volunteering, saying that it’s part of what made her who she is today and what keeps her going, along with her massages on Thursdays and lunches on Fridays. “My advice for people is to be positive and enjoy,” she said. “If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it. Do the best you can and stop worrying about what people think about you.”
As senior advisor to chief clinical officer JP Valin, Jen House applies her data and performance improvement skills to moving the needle on patient care and outcomes. It’s her favorite part of the job – but she didn’t always know she wanted to do it. She started out with a degree in mechanical engineering, and it took an experience repairing a sewing machine in rural Honduras to set her on the path to clinical excellence. Jen explains what she does, what she likes about it, and how she got there in the story below. ⬇️
